Heroes of the Storm PTR Notes – June 4, 2018

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until June 11. As always, if you encounter any bugs during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.

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Echoes of Alterac

PTR Note: While elements of this event may be visible on the Public Test Realm, any progress or rewards earned during PTR testing will not transfer to the live version of the game when this patch is officially released next week.

An age-old rivalry has flared up as the Horde and Alliance battle for dominance over a strategic pass through the Alterac Mountains. Generals from each faction are rallying Heroes to their banners in an effort to gain the upper hand in the struggle to control Alterac Pass. You must decide whether to side with Vanndar Stormpike and the Alliance, or Drek’thar and the Horde. Choose wisely! Your decision is permanent, and these battle-hardened Generals will not tolerate traitors among their ranks.

Starting the week of June 12, until July 9, those who successfully complete quests for their General of choice will be handsomely rewarded with in-game loot, including a Warcraft Reinforcements Chest, which guarantees a Warcraft Hero of epic or higher rarity.

New Battleground: Alterac Pass

Alterac Pass is a three-lane Battleground where Heroes must free imprisoned allied troops, call in their cavalry, and take down the opposing General to claim the Pass for their faction. In addition to enemy forces, the Alterac Mountains are home to many treacherous hazards! Heroes must remain vigilant, as a simple misstep into a mud pit can prove fatal. As well, teams would be wise to recruit the Armored Gnolls and Ice Giants who inhabit the Pass before the enemy faction can harness the deadly creatures for their own gain.

Cores Replaced by Generals

Each team’s Core has been replaced by a General who will aid them in fending off attackers.

Vanndar Stormpike leads the Alliance (left team) in driving back the Horde forces at Alterac Pass.

Drek'Thar has rallied the Horde (right team) to aid in defending the Pass against Alliance invaders.

Each General receives bonus Armor and damage based on the number of allied Keeps remaining. Destroy enemy Keeps to weaken their General.

When attacking a General directly, be prepared to finish the job! Vanndar and Drek’thar will regenerate Health once they are out of combat.

In addition to their Basic Attacks, they can also use two Abilities:

Whirlwind:Deals damage in an area around the General.

Charge: The General dashes to the target enemy, dealing damage.

Capture Prison Camps to Call in the Cavalry!

Three minutes after a match begins, a Prison Camp will spawn for each team. Invade enemy territory to reach the opposing Prison Camp, take out the Guards, and free the allied prisoners to call in a Cavalry Charge!

Channel an opposing Prison Camp to begin a breakout, and then free the prisoner by preventing the enemy team from regaining control of the Camp for 30 seconds.

Watch out for enemy Heroes and Guards! They will attempt to stop any attackers and Channel on their Prison Camp to retake control.

Each subsequent breakout will require the capturing team to maintain control for an additional 10 seconds, up to a maximum of 50 seconds.

Once a team frees the prisoners at an enemy camp, allied Cavalry will charge down all three lanes, attacking any enemies and Structures in their paths.

For example: If all Cavalry from the most recent event are defeated at the 10-minute mark, the next set of Prison Camps will spawn at random between 90 and 130 seconds later.

Mercenaries

Armored Gnolls – Siege Camp

Watch out for the Gnolls who inhabit the Pass! They’re formidable creatures who wield a cleaving attack that can shred a Hero’s Armor in no time.

Ice Giants – Boss Camp

The Ice Giants at the northern and southernmost points of the Pass tend to mind their own business, but once provoked, they’ve been known to hurl deadly balls of ice—and even stomp the ground in an effort to Slow or Stun their foes.

Mud Pits

Combatants who don’t mind where they step can fall victim to one of several mud pits that have sprung up within Alterac Pass.

Any Hero who enters a mud pit will find their Movement Speed reduced by 16% per second, to a maximum of 60%, for as long as they remain there.

Upon finding solid ground, the Hero will regain Movement Speed at 50% per second.

Please Note: Alterac Pass will become available for play in three stages over the next few weeks:

Public Test Realm: Alterac Pass is available for play in the PTR from today until June 11.

Non-Ranked Modes: During the week of June 19, Alterac Pass will enter Quick Match, Unranked, and Versus A.I. matchmaking queues, as well as Custom Games.

Ranked Play: During the week of July 10, Alterac Pass will enter the Ranked Battleground Rotation.

New Hero: Yrel

After traveling to an alternate Draenor, the forces of Azeroth saved the acolyte Yrel from the Iron Horde. With their aid, she rose to the rank of Exarch and fought back the demonic invasion of her world. Now, she finds herself where time, space, and dimensions converge: the Nexus.

Trait

Divine Purpose (D)

Activate to instantly charge Yrel's next Basic Ability at no mana cost.

Design

Vehicle Exit hotkey has been moved to the Trait key (default: “D”), and Vehicle Trait hotkeys have been moved to the Heroic key (default: “R”). This includes:

Dragon Knight

Garden Terror

Triglav Protector

Blaze's Bunker Drop

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

Ragnaros: Empower Sulfuras will now miss when Ragnaros is Blinded, and the Ability’s cooldown will be consumed.

Abathur: Allied and enemy Symbiote hosts will now display a crown icon above their portraits on the Minimap.

PTR Note: The following changes to Armor and Structures are present on the Public Test Realm but will be added to the live version of Heroes of the Storm in a separate balance patch within the next few days.

Armor

Baseline Armor has been removed from a number of Heroes. Please see the specific changes to individual Heroes below.

Developer Comment: We have experimented with baseline Armor on some of our Heroes for some time, but we’ve decided to remove this functionality for now. The problem with it that we’ve found over time is that baseline Armor was difficult to communicate visually. It therefore ended up being a largely hidden power that didn’t have any major changes on gameplay. Going forward, we’ll prefer to make Armor—and other mechanics that are effective against Heroes and damage types—more interesting when they are tied to game mechanics. To clarify, while we are removing baseline Armor from Heroes, we still like Armor that is tied to a window of time or has an obvious display on the Hero when it is active. Some examples include Greymane in Worgen form and Cho’gall’s Ogre hide.

Structures

Fort Tower experience reduced from 500 to 250.

Fort experience increased from 1,000 to 1,200

Keep experience increased from 1,650 to 2,050

Towers of Doom

Fort Tower experience reduced from 500 to 250.

Fort experience increased from 1,100 to 1,200.

Keep experience increased from 1,900 to 2,050.

Note: Towers of Doom Forts upgrade to Keeps when the Tunnels open, approximately 12 minutes into a match.

Developer Comment: We’re taking some of the experience offered by outer Towers and distributing it amongst other Structures in an effort to keep teams closer in levels for a little while longer. We still want to reward skillful play, but a team that completes the first objective is frequently able take out a lot of the opposing team’s outer Structures. Not only did this open up a strategic advantage (Healing Fountains get destroyed, Fortifications provide less safety), but it also pushes the winning team further ahead. Usually, this results in one team reaching level 10 before their opponents, allowing them to snowball to an even greater lead. We’d like to instead slow down early game leads, so that winning teams have to play well for a longer period of time.

Instead, if Spirit of Vengeance hits an enemy Hero, its cooldown is reduced by 4 seconds.

Talents

Level 4

Blade Dance (Q)

Area of effect reduced from 4 to 3.5.

Developer Comment: The cooldown increase for Umbral Bind will grant the Warden’s enemies a bit more of a reprieve between cases of being chained. We are also shifting some of the complexity of Spirit of Vengeance into cooldown reduction upon hitting a Hero, rather than providing bonus Hero damage. This increases Maiev’s capability for wave-clear, rewards players that use the ability to engage, and reduces its usefulness as an escape. Overall, Maiev’s kit is still slightly over-performing, and we’re hoping these changes will get her into a sweet spot.

Lunara

Bonus damage against enemies who have 1 stack of Nature’s Toxin increased from 50% to 75%.

Bonus damage against enemies who have 3 stacks of Nature’s Toxin increased from 100% to 125%.

Developer Comment: Lunara’s rework has put her pick rate, win rate, and Talent pick rates in a pretty good spot. These changes are to address Talent outliers, which we’ll continue to keep an eye on going forward.

Developer Comment: The Nexus has changed a lot since Zagara first arrived. Originally, she was the ultimate lane bully, known for pushing enemies out of lane with Hunter Killer and draining tower ammo with her summons. The arrival of new solo-laners who can challenge her power, combined with the removal of tower ammo, has made this part of her identity less special. The goals of these changes are twofold: first, to slightly reduce her early-game laning presence, largely by reducing the early-game Health of Hunter Killer. Our second goal is to buff her late-game teamfight capability, which we’re doing by improving the scaling on her abilities. Our general thinking is that she is mostly frustrating to lane against during the early game, and then she falls off in power and has less impact in teamfights, which results in allies relying on her to split-push instead of playing with her team. We’re hoping that with these changes she will be a more standard Hero in team compositions, and can be played as a solid backline damage dealer.

Regeneration Globe and Healing Fountain bonuses increased from 2% to 2.25% per Soul.

Soul Shield (Active)

Cooldown reduced from 60 to 45 seconds.

Level 4

Sacrificial Soul (Q)

Armor increased from 15 to 20.

Armor granted after gathering 100 Souls increased from 30 to 40.

Souls to the Flame (W)

Healing increased from 1.25% to 1.3% per Soul.

Level 13

Devastating Charge (Q)

Initial damage bonus reduced from 100% to 80%.

Quest damage bonus increased from 15% to 20% per stack.

Maximum quest damage bonus increased from 75% to 120%.

Developer Comment: Diablo is underperforming since his recent rework, so we’ve increased his baseline survivability. We expect him to rise as players settle into new builds and playstyles, but there was still room to buff the Lord of Terror. We’ve also addressed a few of the Talents that weren’t as strong as their counterparts. Additionally, we’ve reduced the duration of Feast on Fear, but increased its healing per tick, so Diablo players can get more value out of a few healing ticks before overriding it.

Try Mode: A.I. Heroes will now ignore Mercenary Camps. However, an allied Hero will still engage a Mercenary Camp if the player attacks it while that ally is following them.

Volskaya Foundry: Minions can no longer clip through the northern Wall near the Fort in the bottom lane.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

Artanis: Purifier Beam is now correctly interrupted if its target is a Hero with a post death effect, like Leoric or Uther, who is killed while the Ability is being cast.

Deckard: Stay Awhile and Listen’s book model no longer visually persists if the Ability is interrupted by a Taunt effect.

Deckard: Casting Horadric Cube while on a conveyor belt no longer causes the Ability’s area of effect to disjoint from its visual effects.

Deckard: Casting Scroll of Sealing while on a conveyor belt no longer causes the Ability’s area of effect to disjoint from its visual effects.

Deckard: Fixed an issue that could prevent a Healing Potion from being picked up if it was placed between an injured ally and Deckard when Deckard is at full Health.

Fenix: Offensive Cadence will no longer stop functioning if Fenix is killed when his next Basic Attack would have triggered the Talent’s bonus damage.

Li-Ming: Fixed an issue causing Disintegrate to deal one less damage tick than intended.

Ragnaros: When cast on Ragnaros in his normal form, Alarak’s Rite of Rak’shir and Alexstrasza’s Blessing of the Red will not persist after casting Molten Core. However, Ragnaros will regain those marks once Molten Core expires.